Two Roman Catholic priests who until recently lived on the campus of Fordham
Preparatory School in the Bronx sexually abused teenagers there in the
1960s and ’70s, two groups that advocate for sex-abuse victims said
on Tuesday.

Leaders of the two groups — the Survivors Network of Those Abused
by Priests and BishopAccountability.org. — who said they were making
the accusations public for the first time, criticized the school’s
administrators for allowing the priests to reside there for years after
the abuse complaints were made known.

One of the priests, the Rev. Eugene O’Brien, was the principal
and president of Fordham Prep in the early ’70s, when one accuser
said he was molested, the groups said. A lawsuit the accuser filed was
settled in 1997 for $25,000 by the school, the Archdiocese of New York
and the Order of the Society of Jesus, or Jesuits, which runs Fordham
Prep.

The advocacy groups sent to The New York Times a copy of the settlement
agreement, with the accuser’s name excised. Father O’Brien
could not be reached for comment.

The other priest, the Rev. Roy A. Drake, was a science teacher at Fordham
Prep in late 1968 when he raped Richard Cerick, Mr. Cerick says. In an
interview, Mr. Cerick, who was not a Fordham student, said he had been
invited by a friend who attended the school to join him for a weekend
ski trip with Father Drake. He said the attack occurred in the priest’s
apartment on campus the night before they left on the trip.

Joseph Zwilling, spokesman for the archdiocese, said that archdiocesan
lawyers were familiar with Mr. Cerick’s claim against Father Drake,
but that he could not confirm the terms of the 1997 settlement involving
Father O’Brien. In general, Mr. Zwilling said, religious orders
like the Jesuits handled their own personnel and legal affairs.

The Rev. Thomas Slon, executive assistant to the head of the Jesuit order
in the New York area, said he would not comment on the accusations. He,
too, said that he was familiar with Mr. Cerick’s complaint, but
that he would not confirm or deny the terms of the 1997 settlement concerning
Father O’Brien.

Mr. Cerick, now a 53-year-old New York lawyer, said he had kept the incident
secret until 2003, when he became aware of the scandal over sexual abuse
by priests. He began searching the Web for any mention of Father Drake.
After discovering that the priest was living at Murray-Weigel Hall, the
Fordham Prep residence for Jesuit faculty members, he said, he decided
to alert the school’s administrators. He filed his first complaint
against Father Drake in 2005, he said.

Father Drake was transferred to a treatment center for troubled priests
in 2006, and died on Aug. 21 of this year, said Terry McKiernan of BishopAccountability.org.
Father Slon, of the Jesuits, would not confirm that Father Drake had died.

Father O’Brien, after serving as president of Fordham Prep from
1960 until 1979, was principal at Fairfield College Prep, in Fairfield,
Conn.; vice president for community relations at Fordham University; and
president of the Gregorian University Foundation in New York, a Jesuit
institute. He became known for his work in substance abuse treatment,
traveling and lecturing around the world between stints at Fordham University
and LeMoyne College in Syracuse. He is now retired, Mr. McKiernan said.

In a statement, Mr. Cerick said that after he reported Father Drake to
Jesuit and archdiocesan authorities three years ago, “they allowed
Father Drake, who lived and worked for decades on Fordham’s campus
after abusing me, to continue working and residing there.”

David Clohessey, national director of the Survivors Network, or SNAP,
said that the church’s failure to protect the young from sexual
predators was part of a pattern of “secrecy and recklessness”
that has plagued the institution for decades.